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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519338">Sideways From The Sun</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixariel/pseuds/Nixariel'>Nixariel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Daemons, Drabble Collection, Gen, every fandom needs a daemon AU!, tags updated as necessary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:14:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixariel/pseuds/Nixariel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How does the world change when your soul walks beside you?</p><p>A series of ficlets, generally unrelated, in a daemon fusion 'verse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sideways From The Sun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberhow/gifts">rememberhow</a>.</li>



    </ul><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There are two things that make<br/>the conscious world move,<br/>decision and desire.<br/>― Toby Barlow, <i>Sharp Teeth</i></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Suhara learns her name when he is three years old. Their parents are already gone; Hideo is father and mother and brother in one and the first person the toddler tells. He whispers it the way she whispered to him: <em>Teruhime</em>.</p><p>Hideo nods approvingly and O-himawari stretches out her neck to preen the young daemon. Teruhime changes from sparrow to puppy, all the better to wriggle under the ticklish attention, and the bearded vulture clicks a laugh. His brother tells him about a human woman of the same name that night at bedtime and Suhara listens wide-eyed to yet another tale of samurai bravery and honour. His own Teruhime curls against his side as a keen-eared rabbit, too absorbed to even flicker between shapes. They are two sides of the same soul and both of them love Hideo's stories.</p><p>-/-</p><p>Some daemons are as chatty as their humans. Most will at least say hello, even to strangers. Teruhime does not. She speaks only to Suhara, or other daemons, and never in a voice that can be overheard. It helps that in Japan it is considered the height of rudeness to ask a daemon's name or speak to them uninvited. Suhara cannot escape answering for their mischief but without a name to call her, Teruhime is free to pretend she doesn't hear.</p><p>-/-</p><p>She says less and less even to Suhara as they grow older, as his mischief grows less light-hearted and more resentful. Teruhime has not been a rabbit or a sparrow in a very long time. The shapes she chooses now are too large to be carried, mostly wolves or big cats or nimble animals crowned with sharp horns. Once, in a fight shortly after he turns fifteen, she turns into a bear when the other boy draws a knife on him. Even then she does not speak, only growls dark and fierce.</p><p>The <em>yakuza </em>group operating in his district do not eye his bloody knuckles with disdain like Hideo does. They pay Suhara to run small errands and give him a nickname: Shadow, for his light feet, and for the way his daemon follows him like one. They <em>respect</em> him and Suhara—<em>Shadow</em>—drinks it in like water.</p><p>-/-</p><p>On the night he goes to steal his brother's swords, Teruhime pads beside him as a tiger. She says nothing to him, as she said nothing when he was welcomed into Hajime-<em>san</em>'s club, or when the<em> shatei</em> made space at their table with cries of<em> Shadow-</em>kun<em>, na, Shadow-</em>kun<em>, over here</em>, and offered him a cigarette. When, drunk on smoke and rough banter and smiling glances from the hostesses, he boasted about stealing a treasure great enough to earn him a permanent place in their ranks. Only her lashing tail now gives any sign of agitation.</p><p>She waits for him to open the museum's doors with Hideo's pocketed key and follows him all the way to the <em>daisho</em>'s display case. There Suhara picks the lock while she stands guard. Curious about the legendary blades of which his brother spoke so highly, he pulls the <em>katana </em>partway from its sheath. Suhara sees his own eyes reflected and then, finally, Teruhime speaks.</p><p>"Suhara," she says quietly. "What are you doing?"</p><p>It hits him then. The depth, the consequences, the irrevocable nature of walking away with these swords tonight. But it is too late. He hears Hideo's voice coming from behind and nearly drops the blade, his brother surprising them in that moment of inattention.</p><p>"Suhara, what are you <em>doing</em>?" Hideo accuses, unknowingly echoing the daemon. Suhara turns to see his brother, trembling, yet holding the bared <em>wakizashi</em> tight in his hands. "O-himawari thought she heard something, a burglar maybe, and then we find <em>you</em>–" The bird is puffed up to twice her normal size as her talons scratch anxiously on the floor, gaze alternating between Suhara and Teruhime like she doesn't know where to look.</p><p>His brother's eyes fall on the <em>katana</em>. Hideo's grip firms on his own blade even if his shaking doesn't cease. "If you've come to take the <em>daisho</em>, Suhara, then you're going to have to take it from <em>me</em>." O-himawari spreads her wings in the start of a threat display, tension buried under sudden determination.</p><p>Suhara flinches back, hand falling to the sword's hilt with a familiarity his scholar brother could never match. Teruhime's ears flatten—in shame or in warning, he can't tell. Everything has gone so wrong so quickly. Hideo wasn't supposed to be here, wasn't supposed to look at him like an enemy, or worse, a stranger.</p><p>"Suhara," Teruhime says again, low and tight. His nerve breaks. They flee.</p><p>She remains a tiger ever after, and does not speak to him again for five years.</p><p>-/-</p><p>He is lurking in a closet in Argentina when a shudder goes down Shadow-<em>san</em>'s spine and his gaze whips to Teruhime. The child he saw earlier—is <em>touching</em> his daemon. Petting, to be exact, but equally disturbing is that Teruhime allows it. Even other daemons now only received a warning growl on their approach, or a flash of teeth if they persisted. Wolfe's daughter sees him notice her and toddles over with a burbling grin to tug at his pant leg. Her own daemon is a clumsy kitten at the moment, possibly in imitation of Teruhime, nosing around Shadow<em>-san</em>'s foot. He shakes them off curtly, the ingrained aversion to touching another's daemon fighting with his need for stealth.</p><p>The child backs out of the closet to fall on her rear, daemon leaping to her shoulder as a piping chick still fluffy with down. Her excited coos and the bird's noise draws Wolfe's attention; Shadow-<em>san</em> sinks deeper amongst the hanging clothes.</p><p>He doesn't worry about Teruhime. She and her stripes disappear into shadows far better than he ever could.</p><p>But discovery is avoided, Wolfe more focused on keeping his daughter out of trouble than investigating her curiosity. Shadow-<em>san</em> still slips away as soon as the older man is busy helping his daughter wave goodbye to her nanny, his wolf patiently shepherding the child's daemon so they are never far enough apart to cause distress.</p><p>Teruhime waits with Shadow-<em>san</em> behind the bookcase as the two watch Wolfe balance packing with keeping a toddler entertained. He manages it with surprising grace, giving further weight to Shadow-<em>san</em>'s theory that this villa—and with his daughter—is where Wolfe has been spending his increasingly frequent absences. Observing them gives the operative time to steel himself to what must be done.</p><p>He is a soldier. His orders were clear.</p><p>But as Shadow-<em>san</em>'s thumb slides the first inch of his sword free, teeth as long as his fingers close around his free hand. He glares at Teruhime, irritated that she would choose now of all times to behave so strangely. First letting someone touch her, now holding him back, the pressure on his hand a clear threat even if he didn't truly believe she would follow through. She only stares at him with a cat's insouciance and turns her eyes to the far window. When he follows her gaze, Shadow-<em>san </em>sees—others hunt the Wolf this night as well.</p><p>The operative keeps his distance as his former instructor springs into action, hiding the child in the closet like a cub in a den. When his daughter picks up on Wolfe's sudden tension and starts crying, her daemon clinging to her as a baby monkey, not all the man's soft Spanish can calm her down. Shadow-<em>san</em> catches 'come back' and 'soon', 'game' and 'quiet'. In the end it takes bribery to soothe her, as well as his wolf washing child's and daemon's face alike with its long tongue.</p><p>The Wolf looks old as he closes the door, face lined with sadness. He looks like a man who knows he might never come back. Shadow-<em>san</em> watches him duck out a window with his daemon close behind. Standing by that same window to track his target, careful to keep his outline from showing, he sees another get there first: a curly-haired young agent with deadly aim and a leopard daemon.</p><p>Her shot rips the night apart. Faintly, a frightened wail rises from the closet.</p><p>The situation is at once both simpler and more complicated. Shadow-<em>san</em>'s primary mission is complete, if not at his hands. His duty now is to erase all links to V.I.L.E. before the police can enter, for which fire would suffice.</p><p>Except one of those links is alive, a <em>child</em>, helpless and abruptly alone.</p><p>He turns away from the window and straight into the golden eyes of his daemon. "Suhara," Teruhime says, quiet as ever. "You cannot leave her here."</p><p>"Of <em>course</em> I can't lea–" but Shadow-<em>san</em>'s harsh whisper cuts off like he's been slapped.</p><p>Half a decade of silence from her. Half a <em>decade</em>, no matter what he did or how badly they got hurt. Three years ago he might have shouted at the daemon. Two years ago, his own bitter pride might have pushed him to ignore her right back. Now—now he is older, and wiser, a graduate of V.I.L.E. and more aware than ever of how dark a place the world can be.</p><p>"Of course I can't leave her," he repeats, softer this time. "I wouldn't."</p><p>Teruhime nods. "Then hurry. The police will not be occupied by Wolfe's body for long."</p><p>She lets the pair huddle against her forelegs while Shadow-<em>san </em>sets the blaze, grooming child and daemon with casual indifference until they are no more than hiccupping their distress. When the girl starts whimpering after he takes her back, Teruhime bats the matryoshka doll away from the flames licking at it. The young daemon is a kitten again, mewling piteously into his shirt. He picks up the doll and watches Wolfe's daughter reach for it as soon as she registers its presence. A favourite toy, perhaps, but most importantly she—and her needle-clawed daemon—settle into a miserable kind of peace with it in her grasp.</p><p>Loose ends in hand, Shadow-<em>san</em> disappears into the night as Teruhime prowls ahead to make sure their path is clear.</p><p>-/-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Was tossing around a daemon!AU with rememberhow, then <a href="https://rememberhow.tumblr.com/post/638987562484170752/shadowsan-and-teruhime-so-nixariel-s-cs-daemon">art</a> happened. Naturally, I had to write. ;) </p><p>Hideo's daemon: O-himawari, a bearded vulture, also called a lammergeier. Literally eats bones for breakfast.<br/>Shadow-<i>san</i>'s daemon: Teruhime, a Bengal tiger. See link above for picture!<br/>Matsudaira Teru: a Meiji-era Japanese noblewoman known for, among other things, taking charge of the non-military side of a castle while under siege. Also known as Teruhime.<br/><i>shatei</i>: entry-level <i>yakuza</i>, a starting point for moving up in the organization. However, I am not an expert in organized crime and this may not be the most accurate term.<br/><i>katana</i>: the "big" sword of a <i>daisho</i> set<br/><i>wakizashi</i>: the "small" sword of a <i>daisho</i> set</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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